A Vacation

Hello again my blog readers!  My husband and I just got back from vacation and I am going to tell you all (well not everything) about it!  We went to Albuquerque, NM, hereafter referred to as Abq.  We chose there because we wanted to go there.  We stayed for a week and relaxed and enjoyed things.

The first day we drove out to the Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary.  It is about 2 hours west of Abq and on the way we stopped at Bandera Volcano and Ice Cave, a privately owned attraction in the New Mexican mountains.  We got to hike to the top of the crater and look down into it.  The volcano last erupted about 10,000 years ago and created a lava tube that was 23 miles long.  Very cool.  The ice cave wasn't as cool because we didn't get to go into it-we just got to see it from the outside.

Here we are at the crater.

The crater without us.  It is about 800 feet deep.

The ice cave with algae growing everywhere.  The ice is below this.

The Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary is way out in the middle of nowhere.  The Sanctuary was created because people who tried to domesticate wolves and wolf dogs found out it didn't work out too well.  People are still trying to breed and domesticate wolves so the Sanctuary is still necessary.  They don't breed any of the wolves.  They just provide sanctuary until the wolf dies.  Most enclosures contain a male and female wolf.  We went on the regular tour and learned all about everything.  Then my husband got to go on the photo tour, which let him take photos within the enclosures.  Some of the animals got very close to him.

Here's Romeo the Red Fox.  They also had Dingos and Singing Dogs there.

We don't know the specific names for all the animals but here are a few pictures.

Abq has an Old Town area that was the first settlement there way back in the early 1700s.  Now they are all cute little shops and restaurants but the buildings have been there for over 300 years!  I found some cute stuff to buy and also enjoyed the "scenery."  Here is the Catholic church that was built in 1706.

Here is a cute little walkway in Old Town.

I took my bike with me so I could ride on the Rio Grande river path.  The fall colors were pretty and the water was pretty too.  I had a good ride.

We went to the Aquarium and Botanical Gardens there and they were very nice.  I had been there before but I could go back again and again.  The Gardens has a Japanese Garden which is very serene and beautiful.

We went to the Abq temple (for our church) which was nice.  

That's about it for our trip.  I will mention O'Niell's Irish Pub which had the best sweet potato fries ever! And the burger was good too.